HOMEOWNERS FACING FORECLOSURE FLOCK TO COBO CENTER

Original Story: detroitnews.com

Detroit — More than 950 people facing tax foreclosure descended on Cobo Center on Thursday to meet with Wayne County officials in hopes of saving their homes.

Among them was 64-year-old Pamela Hyde. She's owned her tan aluminum sided bungalow on the east side for 35 years, raised her son there and paid her mortgage. But she said a series of illnesses and her small pension has made it difficult to chip away at her $4,400 in tax debt. A Detroit real estate lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.

"I can't afford to lose my home," said Hyde, who waited with hundreds of others for her number to be called to speak with county officials. "There is not a lot of wiggle room. The utilities are sky high. ... I am in need of help. It's my home."

Wayne County officials are pursuing foreclosure on a record number of properties this year. Some have worked out payment plans, but 56,000 properties in Detroit still face foreclosure, said Chief Deputy David Szymanski. Another 4,000 homeowners elsewhere in Wayne County also are set to be foreclosed because of at least three years' of nonpayment of taxes.

The Cobo sessions continue weekdays through next week. They're another chance to meet with county officials to enter payment plans or learn about other relief programs. Nonprofits are also in attendance to provide legal counseling and other help negotiating out of foreclosure.

Recent legislation signed by Gov. Rick Snyder allow the treasurer to lower interest on debt from 18 percent to 6 percent for many homeowners. In many instances, homeowners can have taxes capped at a quarter of the market value of the home. A Tulsa real estate lawyer is following this story closely.

"These new programs are breathtaking in the ways they are able to help out," Szymanski said. "We've never had these types of options."

On Thursday, a whole section of chairs in Cobo was reserved for renters living in homes owned by delinquent landlords. Many were hoping to find a way to purchase the homes themselves.

Sharon Searcy hasn't heard from her landlords for months and hasn't paid rent for more than a year. She's hoping she can find a way to purchase the home and stay there with her two teenage boys.

"I want to stay in the home," Searcy said. "If I could just come up with the payments I could buy it and live there."

Her options are limited and she and other renters typically have to try and bid on the houses they live in at auction this fall. The home has $4,700 in tax debt that Searcy said she doesn't have.

One reason for the increase in at-risk property owners is because of a policy shift by county Treasurer Raymond Wojtowicz, who decided this year to foreclose on all properties that are at least three years' late in taxes. A Detroit real estate lawyer has experience representing clients in foreclosure, workouts, and bankruptcy cases.

By law, those properties are supposed to be foreclosed. But since 2005, Wojtowicz has not taken action on properties with smaller tax bills — $1,500 to $1,700 per year — because he said he lacked the staff to handle that many. Doing so, though, allowed some properties' bills to accumulate to several thousand dollars because the treasurer looked only at the amount of annual tax bills.

"Until you tell people we could take their property, the vast majority hope it will go away," Szymanski said.

At least 18,000 Detroit properties had delinquent taxes dating to 2010 or earlier, according to county data as of this fall.

In a move to stem the tide of foreclosures, Mayor Mike Duggan announced Wednesday that residential property assessments citywide will decline 5-20 percent, the second consecutive year he's cut taxes. Critics argue the city's unrealistic assessments contributed to the foreclosure crisis.

WHERE ARE THE BLACK PEOPLE?

Original Story: detroitnews.com

Near the top of the list of the challenges Detroit faces as it starts its post-bankruptcy era is avoiding becoming two cities — one for the upwardly mobile young and white denizens of an increasingly happening downtown, and the other for the struggling and frustrated black residents trapped in neighborhoods that are crumbling around them. A Detroit Business Lawyer assists clients in structuring, restructuring and liquidating corporate and non-corporate entities.

Nobody wants to inject race into the marvelous story of downtown's rebound, driven largely by young creatives who grew up in the suburbs and are now fiercely Detroiters. I don't either. It's a downer, and the last thing I want to be involved in is another conversation about race. Druther have a stick for my eye.

But with racial tension simmering across the country, Detroit must heed obvious warning signs.

It's a clear red flag when you can sit in a hot new downtown restaurant and nine out of 10 tables are filled with white diners, a proportion almost exactly opposite of the city's racial make-up.

It's a warning signal when you go to holiday events for major Detroit cultural institutions and charities, and you can count the number of African-American revelers on both hands.

It should stop us in our tracks — as it did me the other day — when a group of 50 young professionals being groomed for future leadership shows up to hear advice from a senior executive, and there's only one black member among them.

Pay attention to the stories about the cool kids who are leading the Detroit revival by starting businesses, social groups and nonprofits. Overwhelmingly, the subjects are white. A Detroit Real Estate Lawyer has experience representing clients in major urban development projects, downtown office facilities, and industrial centers.

I'm not disparaging the newcomers. Detroit was an opportunity sitting there for the taking, and they seized it. And what they're doing is miraculous. We can talk all day about why more African-Americans didn't do the same thing. It doesn't matter. We have to understand that we're buying trouble if we don't encourage more black participation.

This isn't about handouts or set-asides or affirmative action. Nor is it about gentrification, an absolutely ridiculous concern in a city that needs so much rebuilding. I don't even believe it's about racism.

Rather, it's about downtown employers making sure they're truly cognizant of the diversity of their workforces, and stretching a bit more to recruit and train native Detroiters, who will then help fill the lofts and nightspots.

It's about encouraging black entrepreneurs to come to or stay in the city, and recognizing there are cultural and opportunity gaps that have to be closed to create a vibrant base of small business started by people drawn from the city's neighborhoods.

And it's about the African-Americans who've already made it showing up in Detroit, putting their money and time into the city's civic, cultural and charitable organizations. Drawing affluent blacks back from the suburbs is also a key step.

Detroit is now the city of opportunity. Fairness demands that those who were here when no one else wanted to be share in the fruits of the comeback.

It's like playing with dynamite to have black Detroiters looking out of devastated neighborhoods at a downtown bustling with hope and hopeful young people, and not seeing their own children among that hip crowd.

DETROIT PROPERTY AUCTION WINNER HAS OUTSTANDING LIENS

Original Story: detroitnews.com

Detroit — A businessman who won an auction of tax-foreclosed, blighted properties in Detroit has a string of tax debts himself.

Onetime casino investor Herb Strather met a deadline Wednesday for a down payment of 10 percent of the $3,183,500 he bid to buy 6,350 dilapidated properties. The lands — mostly vacant lots but also salvageable homes — were packaged in an online sale meant to discourage speculators and tax deadbeats.

Strather has at least $300,000 in recent tax liens and court judgments, but said his company, Detroit Bundle LLC, has the means to renovate salvageable properties and demolish dangerous ones. An Oakland County real estate lawyer has experience representing clients in real estate transactions.

"Our partners have plenty of money," said Strather, a developer of the Woodbridge Estates housing development that replaced the Jeffries housing project. He also was an owner of the Hotel St. Regis that went into receivership in 2009.

"We have very substantial partners. I am willing to lead the way in the redevelopment in the 'D.' "

Strather has two weeks to pay the balance to acquire 2,000 vacant lots, 3,000 properties that need to be razed and 1,000 salvageable homes.

Wayne County officials worked with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan to package the land in a "blight bundle." The properties would have gone to the Detroit Land Bank to be razed or resold if no one bid on them. A Detroit real estate lawyer is reviewing the details of this case.

Riet Schumack, a Brightmoor resident, said she worries that if the bundle is sold to a private developer whose plans fall through, the neighborhoods will suffer.

"We are going to stay in limbo," said Schumack, whose neighbors had hoped to acquire the vacant lots they've been maintaining as gardens and small parks. "I hope the county is going to deeply look into this man's finances."

As a condition of the sale, county officials required bidders to get approval for a redevelopment plan, including proof of finances. Chief Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski said he plans to meet with Strather on Thursday about his plans.

During an often emotional press conference early Wednesday, Strather said he wants to work with community groups, churches and the Detroit Land Bank to demolish dangerous buildings, build homes and rebuild dilapidated ones. He teared up speaking of his hopes for rebuilding the city and said Detroiters should take the lead in its redevelopment. A Rochester landlord lawyer counsels clients on matters involving landlord-tenant law.

"We can save our community," Strather said. "It's not too late. We have the chance to arrest the decay and rebuild."

Strather said his main partner is John Page, who owns Eco-Solutions. Strather said the company has contracts with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to manage government properties in several states, including Michigan. Page did not attend the Wednesday press conference and didn't return a call for comment.

Strather said he hasn't established a timeline for his proposal and acknowledged the redevelopment may take more than six months. He said he hopes the Detroit Land Bank will agree to use federal money to demolish some of the homes and plans to meet with its officials soon.

Land bank officials on Wednesday said they are waiting for the outcome of Strather's talks with the county treasurer to finalize the purchase. A land bank official cautioned that federal funds can't be used to demolish privately owned properties.

"If Mr. Strather is expecting the land bank to pay to demolish properties he has purchased, he has misunderstood the law," said spokesman Craig Fahle.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Strather spoke generally about his tax debt and acknowledged that he owed nearly $20 million several years ago.

"I am just like the city of Detroit," Strather said during the press conference at his building, Tower Center Mall in Detroit, a shopping center at Grand River and Greenfield. "I have taken my financial hits."

Strather runs his own real estate school called Strather Academy. He said he is one of the most experienced developers in Detroit and is best equipped to revitalize the problem properties.

But Wayne State Law School professor John Mogk said any developer who has a record of not "meeting obligations needs to be looked at carefully. You don't want to have the blight continue.".

Strather is the registered agent of a company, Apollo Two, that has lost four Detroit properties this year to tax foreclosure; another 85 are at risk for foreclosure next year. Strather said those properties are owned by his real estate students and many of them are on payment plans with the treasurer.

Strather owes at least $300,000 in state and federal IRS tax liens from 2007-11 and more recent court judgments, according to records filed with the Wayne County Register of Deeds.

Strather has a $77,000 judgment filed against him this year in Wayne County Circuit Court by Comerica Bank for a defaulted loan.

"As far as I am concerned they are small," Strather said of the tax debt and judgments, which he said he plans to pay.

Court records show Strather also owes $24,000 for unpaid rent and fees for a Riverfront Towers apartment that he lived in until 2010 and $25,000 to a Detroit pastor who alleges he wasn't paid for a failed investment.

Strather and his businesses have been sued in federal court over failed projects and other deals at least five times since 2000, records show. The suits have all been settled.

Meanwhile Wednesday, county treasurer officials announced they sold 17,196 foreclosed properties at their September and October auctions for a total of $66 million. That slightly above last year's proceeds of $61 million on the sales of 10,745 properties.